EBAY Watch

Former bear play eBay Inc. (EBAY) has whipsawed into bull phase with price push well above the trading range. I'd vote it off the island as a disgrace to technical analysis, but it actually could make a pretty fair bull play.

	trend	adx	psar	pps	macd	macd trend	sto	sto zone
EBAY $23.85

EBAY is trading nearly 3% above Tuesday's close and has traversed 3% in its intraday rise.

Person's Proprietary Signal, the parabolic sar, the macd and a very unreliable fast stochastic are all showig bull phase.

The rise breaks out of a sideways trend that has lasted since May. The stock is trading above both the 20-day and the 200-day moving average.

The rise, with its higher high, breaks the downtrend that began in March. The price had been zig-zagging lower. All EBAY needs is a higher low to confirm the uptrend.

It would take a rise above $28.37 to show continuation of the uptrend that began in March 2009.

The prior bear phase on the pps lasted four days and produced a 0.1% price decline -- essentially a wash. I wrote about the bear signals in my Aug. 24 analysis.

Today's rise pushed EBAY through the first upper weekly pivot on the Person's chart.



Person's Table

	pps	pps open	upper pivot	lower pivot
EBAY $23.85		$23.22 sep1	$24.29 +1.8%	$22.50 +5.7

Reversal Levels

• $28.37, +19.0% (swing high)
• $23.92, +0.3% (today's high)
• $23.85 <== You are here.
• $23.12, -3.1% (20-day ma)
• $22.49, -5.7% (200-day ma)

Bottom line: I like EBAY as a bull play (although I would be cautious about potential whipsaws), and I would get very jackrabbity about exiting as the price nears the swing high of $28.37.

One thing not to like is the volume, which is running low or even with Tuesday's. This is slow week with Labor Day coming up, but still, a price spike without a volume spike is spikeless in my book.

Disclaimer

Tim Bovee, Private Trader tracks the trades of a private trader for his own accounts. Nothing in this blog constitutes a recommendation to buy or sell stocks, options or any other financial instrument. The only purpose of this blog is to provide education and entertainment. No trader is ever 100 percent successful in his or her trades. Trading in the stock and option markets is risky and uncertain. Each trader must make trading decision decisions for his or her own account, and take responsibility for the consequences.

Abbreviations:

• psar - Parabolic Stop and Reverse
• adx - Average Directional Index
• pps - Person's Proprietary Signal
• ma20 - 20-day moving average
• macd - Moving Average Convergence-Divergence
• sto - Fast Stochastic

About the glance: The colors indicate the state of each signal.

• trend: Determined by the 5-day moving average, green for up, red for down, yellow for sideways
• adx: orange for above 30-up, blue for 20-down, purple for in the middle. Red is most prone to whipsaws
• psar, pps, macd: green for bull mode, red for bear
• sto: green for overbought, red for oversold, yellow for the neutral zone.
• sto zone: green for bull phase, red for bear phase.